So far on the 2nd PTR test, my feedback is as such, and may be updated in the future.
The idea of different rooms costing different amounts based on size is good on paper. A closet shouldn’t take the same space as a large room. However, I think the current values/caps are a bit too restrictive in this build. A build that I could have on the previous test at level 5, is unobtainable with the current level 5. The Previous build with current room point distribution, would net me 107 points, out of a current 43 cap. While the earlier build was certainly on the large side, it was intended to be home for most of my characters. As it currently stands now, I can only get a few medium sized rooms in at the cap, and will need to drastically downsize.
I enjoy the large round room with a skybox to give an outdoor garden vibe indoors, but it’s very buggy in it’s current state (which I assume will be fixed.), the skybox textures could use some refinement and or the ability to perhaps pick from some options beyond ‘day’ and ‘evening’, and the room cost of it is quite expensive at the moment.
Sizing is a massive problem when you have different sized characters. What works for one or two, does not work for any of the others. At lease a sizing option needs to be added for larger characters. All it would take would be a button option to indicate small, medium or large. I don’t see how difficult this could be.
On my own retail Ele Shaman who is a Dwarf, I kept bouncing against walls and ceilings when I played through Undermine and in some areas of the Night Elves. It got so annoying that I did not finish many of those quests that required me to crawl through tiny hallways and slimmer staircases where my toon’s head was bouncing between the walls or off the ceilings….and the Dwarf is not as large as a Tauren.
My feedback for this PTR so far: Who the hell comes up with these budget numbers?! I could fit 8 or 9 rooms in the last PTR, and now I’m struggling to fit 4 (unless I just make a hallway of connected closets). The idea of different rooms costing different amounts is… Well it’s honestly stupid, but Blizzard if you’re dead set on doing it, I guess we’ll just have to deal. But for the love of God, you’ve GOT to increase the totals. Not everyone wants to build a “cozy little bungalow” for a single bachelor.
Not a fan of the new room values, but if we can scale the house xp fairly quick I don’t see it as a problem yet. I do love the more decor budget, though I ran into a bug when I tried to move my house, said it wasn’t on the plot.
Prices for some vendor decor is still too high for items that players are going to buy multiples of. A lot of them can have a zero at the end removed and their prices will be reasonable.
Hallways should have anchors on either side so we can place rooms along them. Same with the new skybox room, which is awesome looking and can’t wait for more types.
I’d like a smaller staircase room. Not just because of the new room costs, but because I don’t want to build a narrow staircase myself.
Asking again for a decor tracker, visiting each faction vendor only to turn around and see a decor vendor is kind of annoying.
I like the catalog, but I’m hoping it will be bigger at launch, some items are way too small and the zoom and spin often doesn’t do them justice at the current size.
I would add, Blizzard needs to add more environmental variety. Look, I know I will never be happy, because the only plot I ever wanted to build a house in Blizzard destroyed in BfA (I will never forget, or forgive, the decision to burn Teldrassil down). My only ask is at least I can get the trees. I want my plot obscured by OG Night Elf foliage, and all I get are apple trees.
Whelp, at least this is the “0.x” version of the feature, so we can be assured that there will be more assets over time. Not the assets I hope to have, but at least y’all should have more to work with as the feature matures.
If the levels we see on PTR are all we are getting for launch, it’s going to be rough. The room budget only scales to 43 at house level 5. The medium square room on its own costs 12, but level 5 also unlocks a large version of that room which probably costs 20 or something ridiculous.
I mean look at this floorplan. I’ve barely done anything IMO and I’ve hit cap for a level 2 house, not even able to add any other room to the second floor. This is so extremely limiting, and if this went live on December 2nd, many players would be upset (and rightfully so). https://imgur.com/a/XnPUjc7
It could be an issue of very poor budget values assigned to certain room types. Perhaps they went away from room count because they wanted to alleviate the issue where certain room connections to smaller room types always required a hallway or closet to extend out so you could place another larger room, thus eating away at your count. But right now, the budget values are horrific.
I just found a flaw that I do not know if it is intentional or not, but it will disrupt a lot of people.
If you choose a vaulted ceiling for your room, even if you can place decor up there, you character can not go passed the base of the ceiling, so for example, if you put your bed up there and build a staircase, your character will not be able to reach the bed unless it is below the base of the ceiling.
Varied room costs is a good idea as long as the limits are high enough. The interior budget feels much higher than the amount of rooms you can use to fit said budget at this time. Multiple floors also feels super restrictive since staircase rooms cost a lot, but don’t have much useable space.
I do wish we had insight on the final renown limits. Whether I like or dislike this change overall depends on how much room budget we’ll have at renown 80 or whatever will unlock beyond early access.
New skybox rooms are awesome. I love them and hope to see a lot of options here.
Well, it appears that whomever made these choices at Bliz did not bother checking out how other games handle this issue of housing, sizes and how to arrange for multiple levels up or sideways. I played Rift and EQII where I got involved with the housing options.
EQII had I think a more comfortable and easily usable setup for player housing. If I chose a small cottage I could add basically more space because that small cottage was actually the size of at least a 4 room space with height enough to add a stairwell and an upper floor.
They also offered mansion sized places which our guild actually developed into a massive guild space with many floors (including a basement), multiple sections for a barn or horse stable with professional equipment that was actually usable by anyone who want to do that profession.
Rift actually had soma amazing options too. I remember touring so many huge spaces that rivaled a palace with extensive grounds, granted the cost depended on the size of the plot but was not limited to what you could build.
Blizzard is showing they are the beggar in rags with this current housing setup.
This first attempt at budget values is grossly out of whack, based on the budget “cap” of 48 available for rooms at level 5 in the renown track which is all we can see right now.
The changes reek of trying to save money on infrastructure and database storage, at the expense of the great player experience we were all expecting that was looking to blow nearly every other option out of the water. It’d be impossible to create the example home they’ve had in preview footage right now, which is telling.
I’m surprised I’m getting this upset about it, but when the feature becomes neutered enough that people are starting to say it’s still worse than other options, that’s a problem.
This is where communication would work wonders for the playerbase. What we will getting in December appears to be a preview of housing, not the whole Midnight release of it. This makes sense because you don’t want pre order people to get too ahead of the people that did not but you still want to have hype for the system. To me the budget for items still feels a bit punitive but there have been some changes.
Knowing what the finial budgets would be for Midnight would really ease people because 48 really is not enough.
“Early Access” and “Preview” are two different things, and I haven’t seen anything that claims that the EA is also “only” a preview. The shop page makes no distinguishment other than when it might start. I agree that communication is needed.
A “greedy” company would have very high limits in order to better upsell $40 deluxe editions with unique decor.
We just need more info on what final renown will look like. Having lower initial limits is a good thing because, realistically, most players will touch housing once or twice and never again. You don’t want to devote tons of hardware to people who will never touch their house again. That’s not only a smart business decision, but also means final limits have more room to grow for those devoted to housing. (Not saying that the current limits at low renown are a healthy number, but in general it’s best if the initial limits are only a tiny fraction of what we get at the end).
Endeavors won’t be enabled until 12.0, and dev interviews stated endeavors are the main way to level your housing renown. You can hit max renown simply by logging in with some old achievements, and running around to various vendors around the world. That would make housing the shortest and quickest renown grind in the entire game, which doesn’t make all that much sense.
They definitely need to communicate better, but there’s no chance that the lvl5 limits are final.
While there is not a claim of it being a preview this was stated in the Midnight Expansion Information Wrap Up.
Players who with the Midnight expansion can begin setting up their new homes beginning December 2 with Early Housing Access. You’ll be able to purchase your first home, establish your Neighborhood, and begin designing your space with the use of your decor collection. Not all features will be available until the launch of Midnight*.*
We are not getting the complete housing in December but beta access is coming in November so we may get to see what the complete renown track is for housing. I highly doubt we would be lucky enough to see a 6 track renown.
Note: I did not participate in the first housing PTR test, so I was forced to use a template character this time, which had a lot of options locked (no rep or professions). I’m also not a big crafter style player, or home builder in games like Sims, Ark, etc.
Decorating the interior and exterior of the home was easy. The tool is very robust. I was also pleasantly surprised at the diversity of the neighborhood vibes available for both factions.
I have no feedback on pricing, crafting costs, or room costs. I understand it was more restrictive than last test, but I was able to be creative with my home and room configuration. I didn’t mind the restrictions. Since I was stuck using a template character, I was locked to housing level 2.
I also love having the option of the faction smugglers available. I’m a weirdo who made an Alliance based plot, and used a lot of Orgrimmar themed items to make a hunter’s lodge style interior. Having the cross faction item availability really sold the feature for me.
Bugs encountered:
Dyed items would disappear once I left the lot. I know many encountered this.
My whole exterior lot shifted to the right at some point, including the out of bounds box. Some items I placed previously were now at the very edges of my lot border.
Pre generated lot foliage couldn’t be removed, and more appeared on my lot on day 2, clashing with some places objects, and restricting me from moving my house within the lot, because it now clashed with bushes that appeared partially in the middle of the lot/home.
My cornerstone changed appearance on the second day from a nice stone pillar to the wooden glowing ‘for sale’ style plot cornerstone sign.
I crafted some uncommon items, and went to my lot to place them. Once I opened the house edit menu, all of my placed items disappeared, and weren’t in my catalogue - including my front door. I was forced to teleport/hearth out. A relog gave me back my items on the catalogue, but also duplicated some items that I already used. I had used all my spooky garden decor, and when I encountered this bug, I got them back in my catalogue - even though they were already placed (and still placed) on my exterior lot. This is a pretty bad bug, especially for potential duplication abuse. I only encountered it once, and it was after crafting Khaz Algar items.
QoL feedback:
A mirror or copy button for duplicating an item to be placed multiple times would be a nice QoL feature, but not having it didn’t hinder me.
I saw feedback on lumber nodes only offering 1 lumber each node. To me, this didn’t feel too bad, but I have a high tolerance for this style grind. A quick 15 minutes of hopping around Dorn got me 60-70 lumber, and I could craft 2 items. At most, I can see extending the lumber gained between 1-3 lumber for each node.
Additional lighting effect options would be lovely. Maybe being able to color the light coming from windows, so you can have different vibes? Some window light coloration ideas: golden hour style autumn/Eversong (or SoCal sunset) light, purpleish tinted light for night elf forest vibes, a sickly green tint like plagued felwood, an orange tint for the red earth and sky effects of Durotar (especially for horde housing lots), a delicately arcane pinkish hue like being in Crystalsong Forest, yellow lighting for Undermine ambient neon street lamps, etc. I care a lot more about ambient and mood lighting to sell a room vibe than stuff clutter, and that bright blue in the windows wasn’t always the mood I wanted.
A more graceful way to exit an interior instance. Suddenly falling out of the sky a few feet next to the cornerstone was very jarring for me, especially for plots where the player moved their home entrance to face away from the cornerstone.
I imagine the community imaginatively found a way to lag things so bad with outdoor elements. Which I suppose is good since it’s good to encounter now. It’s inevitable that the limits will be harder for outdoors decoration.